I found this “plant” off the parking area near the trailhead for the dirt road that goes up Christopher Mountain in the Tonto National Forest of Arizona.
I first saw it in 2003. At that time, it’s “leaves” were taller and still straight up. This picture is from 2008. By then the leaves were very brittle and broke off at the slightest touch. A year later I couldn’t find it anymore. I fear that Fraudulus christopherii is now extinct.
I would love to know the real story behind this. It seems like someone buried a brush with plastic bristles sticking up to deliberately look like a plant. Was this for a joke? To fool or tweak the nose of a specific person? It seems unlikely a brush just left on the ground would have gotten buried this way from natural causes.
Judging by how it degraded, it was probably planted in 2001 or later.
Very interesting. I never heard of survey whiskers before. The white one is consistent with what I saw if it was buried an inch or so below grade. Maybe there was some work done on the parking area around 2001-2002.
Your explanation is the most plausible yet, although a bit disappointing. I was hoping there was a really good story behind it, but engineering for some grading work actually makes sense. This was right at the edge of the what was disturbed to make a parking area.
I’ve been fooled by brightly-colored survey whiskers in the past, thinking it was some interesting flowering plant until I approached it and got a closer look. I didn’t know that was the name for that type of survey marker.
In the riverside woodland near my city, there are shallow plastic livestock food/water tubs laid out in various random places under the canopy. I stumble upon them occasionally when I’m out hiking. If someone didn’t know what they were there for, they might assume it was discarded trash or some effort to feed or provide water to wildlife. The basins are actually to capture falling leaves and other natural debris as part of a long-term study of nutrient cycling in the riparian habitat. If you find something odd out in a natural area, away from most human activity, it just might be part of a biological study.
One I frequently mistake are red drip irrigation heads which when present in a patch of Natal Plum (Carissa macrocarpa) look like fruit from a distance.
I once encountered a grid of laundry baskets in a forest presumably serving the same purpose. It was on university property so I guessed at the solution pretty quickly.
I was told this story many years ago by a fellow herp nerd so can’t vouch for its accuracy. In the Southeast US, reptile hunters (such as snake hobbyists) often focus on trash piles and dilapidated homes that have been abandoned since the loose material and structures often provide excellent cover for snakes. I’ve done some snake-hunting in these areas myself. In one instance, a snake hunter went up to what looked like an abandoned house and began systematically ripping loose boards from the exterior walls looking for hidden snakes. Apparently the family inside was sitting down to dinner and was alarmed by whatever was trying to break into their home.
There’s this pond a frequent quite regularly and it’s interesting seeing how things change over the year. One such example is someone’s folding chair. I first saw the chair down by the pond’s edge, a steep, hilly area of the park. A person was sitting on it and fishing. They had a cooler with them and a few bear cans too.
On another visit, the person was gone, but the chair still remained. It was in the same spot where it remained for a few months. However, the chair eventually moved, it was much closer to the entrance of the pond, more out in the open. It was very dirty at this point. Eventually, the chair was dumped into the pond itself and it’s been there ever since.
It seems to have been abandoned by its owner.
I don’t have a photo, but this is what it looks like, so imagine this submerged in a pond.
Possible, though the water where the chair was dumped is very shallow and I’ve only ever seen European Carp at this pond. I doubt any of the carp could make use of it.
I’ve found multiple car tires, ditched couches, and even a 1970’s era rusted Jeep on the side of the trail.
I also was taking photos of plants on a hiking trail when I got cut by glass hanging off a rock. Probably from someone shattering a beer bottle and got caught in my shoe.
